Newsletter April 1999
Builder 20 Club and Wickes Lumber Co. Advisory Group
I am involved in two small groups of builders from around the country where the members meet once or twice per year to share ideas. In Dallas two days before the Builder’s Convention this past January the advisory group of Wickes Lumber customers met.
Then last month in Denver I met with 19 other builders who own companies similar to ours in quantity, size and type of home. Quality and customer service were common topics of discussion in both groups. Incredibly stimulating associations! I always come back with great ideas. If you want to be a leader in any field of endeavor you can’t sit on your hands and let your competition overtake you in the race to excellence.
Len & Kathy's New Residence
If you were a successful builder of large high-quality custom homes---which creative design features and quality materials would you put into your own 5,000 square foot residence? Our new home is nearing completion and will be open to the public during the hours of the Oshkosh Parade of Homes---April 17 to 25. Please come and visit us at 1335 Maricopa Dr. (Hwy 41 to 9th St. exit West, left on Westhaven Dr., left on Maricopa to our home.)
"EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN!"
Our home has a very old fashioned feel to its decorating. Marble floor in the foyer, traditional dark cherry stairway banister with white spindles. Tall, grooved wainscot paneling in the rear hall and master bath. Decorative historic solid brass door hardware; large scale trim on doors and windows; beamed ceiling in kitchen; round columns in the family room; beaded style siding on the old fashioned screen porch; double chair rail in several rooms.
Wooden blinds and interior window shutters; free-standing stove in library; wide picture-gallery hallway; palladian window over entry door; wall-sconce lighting; tall 8 foot doors; picture molding on dining room walls; French doors to living room, laundry/gardening room and finished basement; ceiling-center lighting medallions; large free-standing soaking tub with gold fixtures and special ceramic base in master bath; 27 foot long wall of 10 foot high dark-cherry stained library shelves; decorative oakleaf/acorn carving theme in several rooms and on the massive fireplace mantel.
By the way…though my new residence is a week from completion I am writing this newsletter while sitting in my new library. Brought in one of my new leather recliners, sitting in front of a pleasant fire in my gas stove listening to classical music. Distracted once in a while by the birds outside in the spruce trees. Yes, life is good!
Parade Schedule
In addition to our personal residence, our official Parade home will be located at 2963 Hidden Hollow in Oshkosh. (Hwy 41 to 21 exit. West on 21, right on Oakwood, left on Pine Ridge, right on Hidden Hollow.)
Where to Build
I am purchasing 500 feet of frontage on a wooded private road---(Waldwic Lane, off Oakwood Road)---in the Town of Algoma, just outside Oshkosh. It is a parcel from the historic Sawyer estate. The entrance to the private lane is through a brick columned wrought-iron gate. Surrounded by large custom homes, the land will be partitioned into three individual lots of 166 by 230 feet---nearly one acre---and reserved for homes of 3,000 square feet or more.
The land will be available for construction in January. I will probably build one home as a spec (for sale), and offer the other two lots for Andrew Homes’ customers to build on. Call me immediately if you would like to be involved in this opportunity. I will not advertise publicly until those on my newsletter mailing list have a chance to consider a purchase.
Lots in the Oshkosh area are in the shortest supply that I have ever seen. Fortunately there are four new subdivisions planned for Oshkosh later this year. Call me.
Fond du Lac’s Whispering Springs golf course development will add a dozen lots at the end of this year. We have 2 spec houses under construction currently and own one other fairway lot that is available for a house customer. We own four large lots in Country Club Estates also.
Also, in Marshall Heights (Appleton), we have eight lots available for customers, and in Grand Chute there will be some large wooded lots soon.
Interactive CD-Rom
Still a work in progress, we are nearing completion of the de-bugging process. In handing out over 1,000 copies at recent home events, we now find the CD working on almost all computers. If you are on our mailing list and haven’t yet received one, you will soon.
The CD includes everything seen on our website (www.AndrewHomes.com) as well as wonderful photos of the interiors of our completed homes. We also have 360-degree video pictures which show how the main rooms relate to each other. Both kinds of CD image files load instantly, unlike they would on our website. We hope to eventually find ways to compress the files so they would load in reasonable time on the internet. Just added to the CD was the sound portion of our new TV commercial which features the testimonial of a couple of our satisfied customers (thanks Steve and Lynn).
We are a sponsor of, and I have been interviewed for, several segments of "The Professional Homebuilding Process" --- airing Sunday mornings at 10:30 on channel 5, WFRV TV.
More Quality For Less
For about a year now we have been providing a chart showing the many valuable features that Andrew Homes puts into its construction that most other builders do not. Last month we finally took the list and calculated the costs associated with each item. The final tally of value for the 30 or so items was about $20,000.
I had an interesting meeting with a prospective customer a few days ago who wondered if there was any hidden item that we left out that he had not noticed. He knew that the competitors’ spec homes in the same neighborhood of ours, were about the same price as ours. The reason for his question was that he had a copy of our features list and could not understand how we could offer so much more than our competitors for the same price!
It was a pleasure to explain to him the low-cost advantage of being the largest volume homebuilder in the Valley. We are given special pricing by national manufacturers such as DuPont (Corian countertops), Kolbe windows, Kohler plumbing, Truss-Joist MacMillan (Silent Floor). We are the largest customer of every one of our local subcontractors and suppliers. Our high volume keeps them busy all year ‘round and we earn much better pricing than their smaller homebuilder customers.
Landscaping, Corian tops, "Silent Floor System", insulated foundation, air conditioning, patio, double-sealed concrete driveway, category-5 phone wiring, bath fans with timer switches, Christmas lighting switch, custom organizer closets---and on and on and on…
Ranch-Style Homeplans
The first two models we built sold before completion but will be open most Sundays until closing in June. One model is located at 1514 Whitetail in Whitetail Subdivision. The other, in Westfield Meadows at 4716 Chicory. Check the Appleton Sunday Paper, or call us, for times and driving directions.